Crying, Pain & Tears: 1d

When one is expressing his pain at the distance between himself and someone with whom he is close, the scream is quite frightening. However, it is a scream that cannot be heard by an outsider. Only to the person to whom the words are directed will the words cause a trembling fright from the scream inherent in the soft words of the one with whom he is close.
Clearly, between people who are close shouting loudly is unnecessary, speaking honestly about pain in the heart is much more effective. Frequently one doesn't even need to mention the pain. It is enough to speak with words of praise and honor to the other and it can then quickly become apparent what is missing in the relationship.

Crying, Pain & Tears: 1c

Loud crying happens between two people who are distant from one another. They communicate their pain by shouting because they are lacking intimacy. This is similar to a  person who feels distant from God and he cries out to Him bitterly. But the real way to communicate with God is by coming to Him and feeling uplifted by hearing His kind words. By feeling that God is bestowing on a person with a smiling face. When there is such a relationship the shouting is of a completely different sort.

When two people have a close relationship and are truly joined and they feel a relationship of give and take with one another, the communication is completely different. When one of them is feeling pain, he or she opens their heart softly and says, "The two of us are so close. How could this issue have arisen to cause such pain?" These soft words are a cry that causes the heart of the listener to tremble much more than the shouts of an outsider. By expressing how close they are, even the slightest distance cries out loudly as it simply shouldn't exist between two people who are so close.

Crying, Pain & Tears: 1b

Clearly it is impossible to always cry out quietly without making a sound; when people are in pain they tend to scream! A person can't really control how he screams; it's like a person who is ill who sighs uncontrollably even though he is well aware that it will do nothing to alleviate his pain. Even when he stops sighing, all he talks about is his pain which still sounds like his sighs and kvetches. He hasn't really eliminated his sighing.

There was once a person who was accustomed to shouting out to Hashem as he davened. His once had a guest at his home who was quite perplexed, "Why can't you just daven quietly? Why is this shouting necessary?" The two of them began to debate the propriety of shouting during davening but neither one was swayed. After a few days the guest left some money with his host for safekeeping. When he was ready to depart he requested that the host return the money. The host said that he had no knowledge of any money that belonged to his guest.

The guest began to shout, "Give me back my money! I see now that all of your davening and piety was false!." "Why are you shouting," asked the host, "can't you speak softly?" "How can I speak softly," shouted back the guest, "my heart is pounding and full of pain over the fact that you are taking what is mine!"

Returning the money, the host responded, "Now you understand. If you have pain in your heart, you don't speak softly."

Crying, Pain & Tears: 1a

A person can cry out to Hashem for one of two reasons. He may find himself in pain or in a difficult situation, such as the Jewish nation crying out to Hashem because of the pain of servitude in Egypt. It is a bitter cry that results from the person's inability to keep his pain inside any longer. There are other times when a person may feel that he is spiritually asleep. He wants to cry out like a roaring lion in order to awaken himself.

There is one more type of cry. It is the silent cry of the heart. As Rebbe Nachman writes, "It is possible to cry out greatly in a small still voice that will be unheard by anyone else. Any person is capable of picturing to themselves a great cry with all the sounds it makes. He can meditate on this until he feels himself shouting internally. By doing so he brings the shout into the depths of his mind."

Sighing: 3

In general, a person doesn't find himself in a state of bring lost. A close relationship is not replete with groans, sighs, and cries. Rather, it is built upon sweetness, peace and togetherness. But even when a person feels that way, he has the ability to connect to Hashem by sighing, which, rather than being a sign of separation and distance, is really a symbol of a relationship.
People mistakenly think that hisbodidus primarily consists of crying and screaming out to Hashem out of pain. This is because many people first adopt the approach of Breslov when they find themselves in dire straits and only Rebbe Nachman's approach seems to offer them hope.

Sighing: 2

Rebbe Nachman writes that when a person sighs he becomes a completely new person. By sighing over his wrongdoings he disconnects himself from his baser side and reconnects to holiness.

This is a result of the fact that even though he finds himself in a disconnected state, he turns to Hashem.

Many people see themselves as only able to truly be functional when they are operating at full capacity (מוחין דגדלות). They view the times when they are down as being blank spaces in their lives. It would have been better had they not even been alive. They are embarrassed by those times and wish to disassociate from them. These people are  not even connected to their own selves. They hide from others and are surely not interested in connecting to Hashem.

Rebbe Nachman is teaching that these are also times of being alive. Even then a person has the ability to connect to Hashem through crying, screaming, moaning and sighing.

Sighing: 1

Rebbe Nachman spoke often about situations which a person finds so painful to the point where he begins to cry out and moan. At times a person can bring himself to this point by calling out to Hashem and sighing. One of his students writes: I was once standing before him as he lay on his bed and said, "The main thing is ,מבטן שאול שוועתי" (From the stomach of the depths I have cried out) the words of the Navi Yonah as he was in the stomach of the fish. Rebbe Nachman explains that a person has to always grasp onto whatever he can and not give up. There is always the possibility of returning. There is never a place for despair.
If a person finds himself continuously falling into quicksand, he calls for help each time, he explained.